"Let no freedom be allowed to novelty, because it is not fitting that any addition should be made to antiquity. Let not the clear faith and belief of our forefathers be fouled by any muddy admixture."
-- Pope Sixtus III

Saturday, July 23, 2011

PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Congressman David Wu, who earlier this year apologized for bizarre behavior during his most recent re-election campaign, was dealing Saturday with yet another crisis — a young woman's reported accusation that she had an "unwanted sexual encounter" with the Democrat three weeks after his election victory in November.

A source close to Wu told The Associated Press the seven-term Democrat was planning to meet with congressional leaders in Washington, D.C., on Saturday to discuss the allegation, which was reported by The Oregonian newspaper.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said any potential outcome of the talks with congressional leaders is not known.

An aide to Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi declined Saturday to comment on Wu.

The allegation seemed to be boiling into yet another sex scandal confronting a member of Congress. It comes a month after Rep. Anthony Weiner, D-N.Y., stepped down after getting caught sending suggestive pictures of himself on his Twitter account.

Late Friday, the 56-year-old Wu issued a one-sentence statement about The Oregonian's report: "This is very serious, and I have absolutely no desire to bring unwanted publicity, attention or stress to a young woman and her family."

Two prominent Democrats are running against Wu in next spring's primary, and both said the congressman should resign if the sex allegations are true.

"I'm saddened to hear this news. David owes the citizens he represents a detailed explanation," said State Rep. Brad Witt. "If this accusation proves to be true, it's time for David Wu to resign and get the help he needs."

The other Democratic challenger, state Labor Commissioner Brad Avakian, said "these are deeply troubling accusations, and my thoughts are first and foremost with the young woman in question and her family."

When asked whether Wu should resign, Avakian said if the allegations are true, "I think it is time for him to resign."

Tom Chamberlain, Oregon AFL-CIO president, wouldn't speculate on Wu's chances to get the powerful labor group's nod in the 2012 election, as Wu has in past elections, but said "it's a high threshold."

Quoting anonymous sources, The Oregonian reported that Wu told senior aides that the sexual encounter last November with the young woman in California was consensual. The paper reported Facebook notes indicate she graduated from high school in 2010 and that she registered to vote in California last August.

The paper said the woman decided not to press changes because there were no witnesses and it would have been her word against Wu's.

The newspaper said its information came from multiple sources familiar with the allegation.

The Oregonian's report adds new troubles for a congressman who fought accusations of strange and erratic behavior during his re-election campaign last year. Seven members of his re-election campaign quit in January because of behavior that included sending a photo of himself in a tiger costume to a staff member and angry public speeches.

Earlier this year, Wu told The Associated Press that his erratic behavior last year was the culmination of a period of mental health challenges that began in 2008 as marital issues led toward separation from his wife. The couple's divorce proceedings are ongoing.

In a 2004 re-election bid, Wu acknowledged a decades-old college incident in which he tried to force an ex-girlfriend to have sex. His opponent in the general election tried to use the report from Wu's undergraduate days at Stanford in 1976 to show Wu wasn't fit to serve. Instead of derailing his campaign, the opponent's tactics were regarded as unseemly, and Wu won re-election handily.

Wu and his wife separated in December 2009 for reasons that have not been disclosed. They have two children.

Oregon's Democratic leaders were reluctant to discuss the latest allegation on Saturday.

"We're waiting to see what happens," Trent Lutz, executive director of the Democratic Party of Oregon, told the AP.

The Oregonian quoted sources as saying that a distraught young woman called Wu's Portland office earlier this year and left a voicemail accusing him of an unwanted sexual encounter in Southern California three weeks after last year's election.

The paper said the woman is the daughter of a high school friend of Wu's who has donated to the congressman's campaign.

Wu was first elected to Congress in 1998. Each election cycle he is a prime target for the Republican Party, but he keeps disproving predictions that he will lose.

He has shown an unpredictable streak that has baffled some fellow Democrats. He sided with House Republicans in 2003 and voted for President George W. Bush's Medicare bill, then drew some attention at home for opposing Gov. Ted Kulongoski, a fellow Democrat, who agreed to allow the Warm Springs tribe to build an off-reservation casino in Cascade Locks.

In a speech on the House floor in January 2007, he referred to people in the Bush White House as Klingons.

Syria continues to be defiant against the repressive regime of President Bashar Assad, as massive protests erupted throughout the country after noon prayers Friday. This was in spite of security forces continuing to the blast the central city of Homs with intense gunfire, reports The Los Angeles Times. According to activists, at least five people have been reported killed in the violence so far ...

Of course, a grownup who still buys into that Leninist-Leninist crapola is as mature as your average three year old. He's ignorant, petulant, impatient, and he makes eveyone's life miserable if he is not treated as the center of the universe.

LONDON (AP) - Amy Winehouse, the beehived soul-jazz diva whose self-destructive habits overshadowed a distinctive musical talent, was found dead Saturday in her London home, police said. She was 27.

Winehouse shot to fame in 2006 with the album "Back to Black," whose blend of jazz, soul, rock and classic pop was a global hit. It won five Grammys and made Winehouse - with her black beehive hairdoand old-fashioned sailor tattoos - one of music's most recognizable stars. But her personal life, with its drug and alcohol abuse, eating disorders and destructive relationships, soon took over her career.

Police confirmed that a 27-year-old female was pronounced dead at the home in Camden Square northern London; the cause of death was not immediately known. London Ambulance Services said Winehouse had died before the two ambulance crews it sent arrived at the scene.

Singer and actress Kelly Osbourne, who helped Winehouse check into a drug addiction treatment facility in 2008, was one of many who grieved for the singer on Twitter.

"I cant even breath right now im crying so hard i just lost 1 of my best friends. i love you forever Amy and will never forget the real you!" she tweeted.

The singer's father, Mitch Winehouse, had arrived in New York this weekend to prepare for his U.S. performing debut Monday night at the Blue Note jazz club, but upon receiving news of his daughter's death was heading back home to London to be with his family, his publicist Don Lucoff said.

An ambulance could be seen parked beneath the trees outside her London home, and the whole street was cordoned off by police tape. Officers kept onlookers away from the scene.

Last month, Winehouse canceled her European comeback tour after she swayed and slurred her way through barely recognizable songs in her first show in the Serbian capital of Belgrade. Booed and jeered off stage, she flew home and her management said she would take time off to recover.

Winehouse was last publicly seen on at a London concert on Wednesday when she joined hergoddaughter Dionne Bromfield on stage. In that impromptu appearance, Winehouse danced with Bromfield and encouraged the audience to buy her album, before leaving the stage.

"I didn't go out looking to be famous," Winehouse told the Associated Press when "Back to Black" was released. "I'm just a musician."

But in the end, the music was overshadowed by fame, and by Winehouse's demons. Tabloids lapped up the erratic stage appearances, drunken fights, stints in hospital and rehab clinics. Performances became shambling, stumbling train wrecks, watched around the world on the Internet.

Born in 1983 to Mitch Winehouse, taxi driver, and his pharmacist wife Janis, Winehouse grew up in the north London suburbs, and was set on a showbiz career from an early age. When she was 10, she and a friend formed a rap group, Sweet 'n' Sour - Winehouse was Sour - that she later described as "the little white Jewish Salt 'n' Pepa."

She attended the Sylvia Young Theatre School, a factory for British music and acting moppets, later went to the Brit School, a performing arts academy in the "Fame" mold, and was originally signed to "Pop Idol" svengali Simon Fuller's 19 Management.

But Winehouse was never a packaged teen star, and always resisted being pigeonholed.

Her jazz-influenced 2003 debut album, "Frank," was critically praised and sold well in Britain. It earned Winehouse an Ivor Novello songwriting award, two Brit nominations and a spot on the shortlist for the Mercury Music Prize.

But Winehouse soon expressed dissatisfaction with the disc, saying she was "only 80 percent behind" the album.

"Frank" was followed by a slump during which Winehouse broke up with her boyfriend, suffered a long period of writer's block and, she later said, smoked a lot of marijuana.

"I had writer's block for so long," she said in 2007. "And as a writer, your self-worth is literally based on the last thing you wrote. .. I used to think, 'What happened to me?'

"At one point it had been two years since the last record and (the record company) actually said to me, 'Do you even want to make another record?' I was like, 'I swear it's coming.' I said to them, 'Once I start writing I will write and write and write. But I just have to start it.'"

The album she eventually produced was a sensation.

Released in Britain in the fall of 2006, "Back to Black" brought Winehouse global fame. Working with producers Mark Ronson and Salaam Remi and soul-funk group the Dap-Kings, Winehouse fused soul, jazz, doo-wop and, above all, a love of the girl-groups of the early 1960s with lyrical tales of romantic obsession and emotional excess.

"Back to Black" was released in the United States in March 2007 and went on to win five Grammy awards, including song and record of the year for "Rehab."

Music critic John Aizlewood attributed her trans-Atlantic success to a fantastic voice and a genuinely original sound.

"A lot of British bands fail in America because they give America something Americans do better - that's why most British hip-hop has failed," he said. "But they won't have come across anything quite like Amy Winehouse."

She was famously blunt in her assessment of her peers, once describing Dido's sound as "background music - the background to death" and saying of pop princess Kylie Minogue, "she's not an artist ... she's a pony."

The songs on "Black to Black" detailed breakups and breakdowns with a similar frankness. Lyrically, as in life, Winehouse wore her heart on her sleeve.

"I listen to a lot of '60s music, but society is different now," Winehouse said in 2007. "I'm a young woman and I'm going to write about what I know."

Even then, Winehouse's performances were sometimes shambolic, and she admitted she is "a terrible drunk." She acknowledged struggling with eating disorders and told a newspaper that she had been diagnosed as manic depressive but refused to take medication. Soon accounts of her erratic behavior, canceled concerts and drink- and drug-fueled nights began to multiply.

Photographs caught her unsteady on her feet or vacant-eyed, and she appeared unhealthily thin, with scabs on her face and marks on her arms.

There were embarrassing videos released to the world on the Internet. One showed an addled Winehouse and Babyshambles singer Pete Doherty playing with newborn mice. Another, for which Winehouse apologized, showed her singing a racist ditty to the tune of a children's song.

Winehouse's managers went to increasingly desperate lengths to keep the wayward star on the straight and narrow. Before the June concert in Belgrade, her hotel was stripped of booze. It did no good, and the concert was painful to watch.

Though she was often reported to be working on new material, fans got tired of waiting for the much-promised followup to "Back to Black."

Occasional bits of recording saw the light of day. Her rendition of The Zutons' "Valerie" was a highlight of producer Mark Ronson's 2007 album "Version," and she recorded the pop classic "It's My Party" for the 2010 Quincy Jones album "Q: Soul Bossa Nostra."

But other recording projects with Ronson, one of the architects of the success of "Back to Black," came to nothing.

She also had run-ins with the law. In April 2008, Winehouse was cautioned by police for assault after she slapped a man during a raucous night out.

The same year she was investigated by police, although not charged, after a tabloid newspaper published a video that appeared to show her smoking crack cocaine.

In 2010, Winehouse pleaded guilty to assaulting a theater manager who asked her to leave a family Christmas show because she'd had too much to drink. She was given a fine and a warning to stay out of trouble by a judge who praised her for trying to clean up her act.

In May 2007 in Miami, she married music industry hanger-on Blake Fielder-Civil, but the honeymoon was brief. That November, Fielder-Civil was arrested for an attack on a pub manager the year before. Fielder-Civil later pleaded guilty to assaulting barman James King and then offering him 200,000 pounds (US$400,000) to keep quiet about it.

Winehouse stood by "my Blake" throughout his trial, often blowing kisses at him from the court's public gallery and wearing a heart-shaped pin labeled "Blake" in her hair at concerts. But British newspapers reported extramarital affairs while Fielder-Civil was behind bars.

They divorced in 2009.

Winehouse's health often appeared fragile. In June 2008 and again in April 2010, she was taken to hospital and treated for injuries after fainting and falling at home.

Her father said she had developed the lung disease emphysema from smoking cigarettes and crack, although her spokeswoman later said Winehouse only had "early signs of what could lead to emphysema."

She left the hospital to perform at Nelson Mandela's 90th birthday concert in Hyde Park in June 2008, and at the Glastonbury festival the next day, where she received a rousing reception but scuffled with a member of the crowd. Then it was back to a London clinic for treatment, continuing the cycle of music, excess and recuperation that marked her career.

CLEVELAND, Ohio -- After the recentrevelation that Bishop Richard Lennon's leadershipof the Cleveland Catholic Diocese is under investigation by the Vatican, local Catholics are abuzz about what might happen next.

But with a shroud of secrecy hanging over the inquiry church activists can only guess.

The Rev. John M. Smith, bishop emeritus of the Diocese of Trenton, N.J., representing the Vatican, spent five days at the Jesuit Retreat House in Parma beginning July 11interviewing priests and parishioners about how they perceive Lennon as a spiritual leader.

Such an investigation, known as an Apostolic Visit, is rare by the Holy See, according to at least one lawyer familiar with church law. The review, which Lennon has said herequested,comes in the wake of his reconfiguration of the eight-county diocese which saw the closing of 50 churches since August 2009.

Most were inner-city or ethnic churches, prompting protests and a flurry of letters to the Catholic hierarchy in Rome. More than a dozen parishes filed formal appeals to a Vatican panel and are waiting for verdicts.

One congregation, St. Peter's in downtown Cleveland, in defiance of Lennon's order to disband, broke away from the diocese and, along with its priest, set up its own worship space in a commercial building.

It wasn't clear how many people Smith interviewed during his week-long visit. Sister Mary Ann Flannery, director of the retreat house, estimated 25 to 30 people met with the New Jersey bishop.

Retired Cleveland Bishop Anthony Pilla declined to say whether he met with Smith, saying only, "He met with a number of people."

It also was not clear whether Smith is finished with his inquiry or whether he will continue it long-distance with phone interviews.

Neither Smith nor officials from the Trenton diocese returned phone calls or responded to emailed questions.

A spokesman for the Cleveland diocese said ithad no further comment on Smith's visit.

Apostolic visitations are extremely rare, according to Nick Cafardi, a civil and canon lawyer and dean emeritus at Duquesne University Law School in Pittsburgh. The last visitation in the United States was in Seattle in 1983, he said.

It is also rare, said Cafardi, for a bishop to call for a visitation. "That's like calling an air strike on yourself," he said.

Two people interviewed by Smith, Patricia Singleton of the closed St. Patrick's in West Park, and Miklos Peller of the closed St. Emeric's on Cleveland's Near West Side, pleaded for the reopening of their parishes.

Both said they found the New Jersey bishop to be receptive and concerned.

Peller said Smith shook his head in disbelief when he told him that Lennon closed six out of seven Hungarian churches in the diocese: Holy Trinity in Barberton; Sacred Heart of Jesus in Akron; Sacred Heart of Jesus in Elyria; St. Ladislaus in Lorain; St. Emeric in Cleveland and St. Margaret of Hungary in Orange.

St. Elizabeth of Hungary in Cleveland remains open.

Peller said that at the end of his hour-long interview, Smith asked him: "In spite of all that has happened, can you still accept him as your bishop?"

Peller said he answered: "No. There's not much hope for that."

The diocese said in its news release announcing the visitthat there was no timetable for Smith to submit his findings to the Vatican.

FutureChurch, a national organization based in Lakewood that's working for reform within the church, issued a statement calling on the Vatican to make Smith's findings public.

But the organization's director, Sister Christine Schenk, said she doubts that will happen.

Still she praised the Vatican hierarchy for conducting the visitation. "They don't do these things if there's not an issue," said Schenk. "I think there are problems with the leadership here and the Vatican is attending to them. That's a good thing."

A new poll conducted by Zogby International for the Arab American Institute Foundation finds that favorable ratings have plummeted in the two years following President Obama's landmark speech to the Arab world in Cairo.

Day Three of the Allen West-Debbie Wasserman Schultz blowup ... Rep. West was on FOX Business Network this morning and was asked whether he'd apologize to his Florida colleague. "That is not happening," he said. "This is a pattern I referred to in that email that goes back to 2010. Finally I think I have the right to stand up and defend my honor and make sure that this type of activity does ...

West fired off an e-mail to Wasserman-Schultz and House leadership that called her "the most vile, unprofessional and despicable member of the House," and said she is "not a lady" and isn't "afforded due respect from him".

WASHINGTON (AP) - A Republican congressman from Florida turned to email on Tuesday to call a Democratic colleague from the state "vile, despicable and cowardly" after she criticized his stance on Medicare when he was away from the House floor.

SANTIAGO, Chile — A scientific autopsy has confirmed that Chilean President Salvador Allende committed suicide during the 1973 coup that toppled his socialist government, court officials announced on Tuesday.

British ballistics expert David Prayer said Allende died of two shots fired from an assault rifle that was held between his legs and under his chin and was set to fire automatically. The bullets blew out the top of his head and killed him instantly.

Prayer said there were two bullets fired, two casings recovered and that there is no evidence a second person was involved in Allende's death. That ruled out theories that Allende, the first socialist in the Americas to come to power at the ballot box, was killed by the military as troops stormed the presidential palace during the coup led by Gen. Augusto Pinochet.

Allende had said he wouldn't be taken alive even as Pinochet ordered an all-out attack on La Moneda. The palace was bombed by fighter jets and the air thick with tear gas and smoke as the building went up in flames. Allende had ordered his allies to surrender, but he stayed behind. What happened next has always been shrouded in mystery.

The deposed president's body was exhumed in May for its first authoritative autopsy as Chile's independent judiciary began a criminal investigation into the death of Allende and hundreds of other victims of the Pinochet dictatorship.

Dr. Patricio Bustos, who directs Chile's Medical Legal Service, announced the autopsy results, which he described as definitive. Ever since Allende's death, Chile's military has held that he committed suicide, while others, notably Cuban leader Fidel Castro and Nobel Prize-winning writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez, wrote that Allende went down fighting. Others more recently claimed he tried to kill himself but was only gravely wounded and was then killed by a bodyguard, who then died as well.

The experts also determined that Allende died using the AK-47 Castro had given him while visiting Chile two years earlier.

This autopsy supports the version of Dr. Patricio Guijon, who had been part of Allende's medical team and said he alone happened to witness the death.

Guijon described those moments in an Associated Press interview just before the autopsy began. He said that with the palace in flames, Allende told the 30 to 40 people who had stayed with him that they would surrender together, and that he would take up the rear as they filed out.

Instead, the president slipped off alone to the palace's Independence Hall. Guijon, meanwhile, realized he had left his gas mask behind and went to retrieve it. It was then that he saw Allende through an open door, he said, just as the president's body jerked upwards with the force of the blast.

This was the second autopsy performed on Allende's cadaver. The first was done secretly and in irregular fashion by the military that night, before the body was quickly buried in a relative's crypt. Allende was eventually reburied with honors in Santiago, and his daughter Isabel, now a senator, had refused for years to allow another autopsy.

Now, however, she said it is a relief to know that science supports what the family has always believed.

"President Allende, on Sept. 11, 1973, faced with the extreme circumstances that he was living through, took the decision to end his life, rather than be humiliated," Allende said.

Before making the autopsy results public, the autopsy team met for several hours with Judge Mario Carroza, Sen. Allende and a family lawyer to explain the conclusions. Chile's Supreme Court has assigned Carroza to investigate Allende's death as well as that of 725 other people who were killed or disappeared during the 1973-1990 Pinochet dictatorship.

WASHINGTON (BP)--Health insurance plans will be required to provide no-cost coverage of contraceptives -- including drugs that can cause abortions -- under a recommendation made to the federal government July 19.

Is there nothing in last year's Affordable Care Act that people won't fight over? The latest battle is set to come to a head Wednesday, when the independent Institute of Medicine is expected to make recommendations about preventive health care services for women.

Since migraines are an overwhelmingly female affliction, it is obvious the AmericaLast media are attempting to portray Bachman as a weak and helpless little girl who will lock herself in a White House bathroom the moment the Slave Chinese invade Taiwan, the Slave Koreans nuke Seoul, or the non-moderate mohammedans in Teheran nuke Tel Aviv.

Typical.

We will be able to judge how smart American women are by noting how many now attack her.

As news of Michele Bachman's migraines spreads, people question whether figures with ailing health should be considered for the Presidency. These are some of past U.S. Presidents who battled illnesses during their lifetime.

As a visitor to the USA, one sometimes gets the feeling that it’s hard to move or look around without seeing a flag. They are seemingly everywhere, an omnipresent reminder of national identity. But the star-spangled banner is more than a symbol; it can also influence minds in unexpected ways. Travis Carter from the University of Chicago has found that when people think about voting decisions, the mere sight of the American flag can subtly shift their political views… towards Republicanism. It’s an effect that holds in both Democrats and Republicans, it affects actual votes, and it lasts for at least 8 months.

In the run-up to the 2008 US presidential election, Carter recruited a group of around 200 volunteers and asked them about their political views. A month or so later, he split them into two groups that were comparable in terms of their political beliefs, voting intentions and other variables. Both groups rated how likely they were to vote for either the Democrat Barack Obama or the Republican John McCain on an online questionnaire. The questionnaires were identical except for one small detail – in the top left corner of the screen, one group saw a small American flag and the other saw nothing.

That tiny difference was enough to swing their voting preferences. Carter found that the volunteers who saw the tiny flag became more likely to vote for McCain than Obama (relative to their answers at the start of the experiment). They claimed to feel more positive towards the Republicans and even when Carter tested their unconscious atittudes, a small Republican bias still came through.

After the election, Carter contacted the volunteers again and asked them who they actually voted for. He found that those who saw the flag were less likely to have voted for Obama than those who didn’t (73% versus 84%). They were also more likely to think that the media were unduly harsh in their treatment of McCain. Remember that there were no differences in the political leanings of the two groups before one of them saw the flag-bearing questionnaire.

Finally, in July 2009, Carter caught up with his volunteers one last time. Even though eight months had passed since half of them saw the tiny flags on-screen, these recruits still showed some Republican bias. They were less happy about Obama’s job performance than their peers, less warm about other liberal leaders, and even held slightly more conservative views. (Bear in mind that in this final round, only a third of the original sample answered Carter’s call; however, both the flag and no-flag groups were equally represented).

The effect of Carter’s simple questionnaire is stark in both its size and duration He writes, “A single exposure to an unobtrusive American flag shifted participants’ voting intentions, voting behaviour, attitudes, and beliefs toward the Republican end of the ideological spectrum.“ This was true whether the volunteers identified as liberal or conservative – people from both ends of the spectrum shifted towards Republicanism.

But there is one important difference between the two studies: the Israeli flag pushed people towards the political centre, but the US one shifted people to the right. Why?

Perhaps the volunteers moved towards the dominant party at the time? Carter thinks not. In the spring of 2010, with Obama a year in power, Carter recruited 70 people and asked them to look at four photographs. Half the people saw buildings with flags in front of them; the others saw photos where the flags had been digitally removed. Even though the two groups had the same spectrum of political beliefs beforehand, the flag group shifted towards a Republican worldview after seeing the photos. It doesn’t seem to matter who is sitting in the White House at the time.

Instead, Carter suggests three alternative explanations. First, it’s possible that the flag does shift people to a more moderate position. Carter’s recruits tended to be more liberal than conservative, so if they all moved towards the political centre, that would come across as a shift to the Republican end. The fact that conservative volunteers shifted further to the right argues against this, but it would be simple enough to test by repeating the study with a group of predominantly Republican volunteers.

Second, people might associate the American flag with Republicans more than Democrats. Carter demonstrated as much in a small pilot study of 50 people – they associated brandishing the flag with Republicans more than Democrats. And indeed, previous studies have found that conservative Americans are more like to own or display a flag than liberals are. Carter writes, “The American flag conjures up Republican beliefs and attitudes, and these primes collectively push people in the Republican direction.”

Third, people might simply believe that the average American is more conservative than they are. Carter argues that people associate national flags with the archetypal citizen, and if they see a flag, they might shift their attitudes towards that imaginary every-American.

All three possibilities can be tested in future studies. For now, one thing is clear: these results come as a shock to most people. Indeed, Carter found that 90% of people believe that the presence of a flag wouldn’t affect their voting behaviour.

We like to think that their political beliefs and choices are the result of thoughtful consideration and objective analysis. In truth, several studies have now shown that voting simply isn’t that rational. Our choices are affected by unconscious preferences, our reflexes, and even local sports results. We are so predictable that people can guess the victors of elections with a surprising degree of accuracy based only on fleeting glances. In this context, the idea that a powerful national symbol like a flag could affect political preferences is not unreasonable.

It does, however, seem unbelievable that one exposure to an innocuous flag could have such broad effects, especially since the recruits will have seen hundreds of flags in their daily lives. Carter acknowledges this incredulity. “Considering how often Americans are exposed to their flag, why would this one exposure have any impact at all?” he writes.

He thinks that the answer lies in the context of the experiment. During his study, people saw the flag while explicitly declaring their voting intentions. That’s a very powerful act, and not one that people do very regularly. Carter says, “For some participants, explicitly declaring voting intentions may have been a rare event that further crystallized their stated intentions and attitudes, incorporating any bias introduced by the presence of the flag at that critical moment.”

New York, July 21 (ANI): A glimpse of the American flag can sway voters, even Democrats, toward more Republican voting behavior, attitudes and beliefs, a new two-year study says.- ANI via Yahoo! India News

CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida (Reuters) - The space shuttle Atlantis glided home through a clear moonlit sky on Thursday to complete a 13-day cargo run to the International Space Station and a 30-year odyssey for NASA's shuttle program.

Commander Chris Ferguson gently steered the 100-tonne spaceship high overhead, then nose-dived toward the swamp-surrounded landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center, a few miles (kilometers) from where Atlantis will go on display as a museum piece.

Double sonic booms shattered the predawn silence around the space center, the last time residents will hear the distinctive sound of a shuttle coming home.

Astronaut Barry Wilmore from Mission Control answered back, "We'll take this opportunity to congratulate you Atlantis, as well as the thousands of passionate individuals across this great space-faring nation who truly empowered this incredible spacecraft, which for three decades has inspired millions around the globe."

Atlantis' return from the 135th shuttle mission capped a 30-year program that made spaceflight appear routine, despite two fatal accidents that killed 14 astronauts and destroyed two of NASA's five spaceships.

The last accident investigation board recommended the shuttles be retired after construction was finished on the space station, a $100 billion project of 16 nations. That milestone was reached this year, leaving the orbiting research station as the shuttle program's crowning legacy.

Details of a follow-on program are still pending, but the objective is to build new spaceships that can travel beyond the station's 250-mile (400-km) orbit and send astronauts to the moon, asteroids and other destinations in deep space.

The final shuttle crew included just four astronauts -- Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley, flight engineer Rex Walheim and mission specialist Sandy Magnus -- rather than the typical six or seven astronauts, a precaution in case Atlantis was too damaged to safely attempt the return to Earth. With no more shuttles available for a rescue, NASA's backup plan was to rely on the smaller Russian Soyuz capsules.

Pope Benedict XVI this morning named Denver Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles Chaput, an outspoken and at times polarizing figure in the American church, to lead the scandal-ridden Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

Chaput, 66, will have the difficult task of succeeding Cardinal Justin Rigali, whose handling of clergy sexual-abuse cases has come under fire.

According to a brief statement by the Vatican, Benedict also accepted Rigali's resignation, citing reasons of age. As is required by church law, Rigali offered his resignation when he turned 75 in April of 2010.

A news conference is planned for later this morning in Philadelphia. The Archdiocese of Philadelphia includes about 1.4 million Catholics.

Chaput will be installed in the new job Sept. 8.

The move to one of the nation's preeminent dioceses puts Chaput in line to become a cardinal, joining the elite "princes of the church" who elect popes.

If form holds, it will be at least six months before a replacement for Chaput in Denver is named. The Denver archdiocese spans 24 northern Colorado counties and includes about 500,000 Catholics.

During his 14 years in Denver, Chaput has emerged as a strong voice of conservative, orthodox Catholicism very much in keeping with the vision of Pope Benedict.

Chaput has called on Catholics to follow their faith's teachings at the ballot box — especially on the topic of abortion — drawing criticism that he was not-so-subtly promoting Republican candidates.

Uh-oh. This means the Catholic hating media will only talk about the homosexual priest problem in the Philadelphia archdiocese for as long as he continues to dare to defend authentic Catholicism. If he was a left-fascist heretic, the whole homosexual priest scandal would disappear.

He also has weathered a clergy abuse scandal — although on a much smaller scale than other U.S. dioceses — and oversees a successful seminary while other dioceses have struggled to recruit men to the priesthood.

"He is not compromising and he's very outspoken — and he's sometimes made enemies by being outspoken," said Russell Shaw, a former spokesman for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. "But people who get to know him soon enough come to realize they're dealing with a man of transparent goodness and integrity."

Anger lingers over abuse

Chaput's name has been floated whenever a high-profile bishop's post comes open. Even so, Chaput's appointment to Philadelphia was not anticipated. Some observers thought he was bound for Chicago to replace his friend, the soon-to-retire Cardinal Francis George.

As required, Rigali submitted his resignation to Benedict on his birthday last year. But as is often the case, the pope did not immediately accept it.

A grand-jury report in Philadelphia five months ago criticized the Philadelphia archdiocese for covering up claims of sexual abuse by priests against children. The revelations were shocking, coming after bishops passed reforms meant to root out abuse and coverup.

"Archbishop Chaput's first task, which he certainly understands, will be to address this squarely and quickly," said the Rev. James Martin, culture editor of America magazine and a Jesuit priest. "Everyone is angry — from the person in the pews to the priests in sacristy."

Martin called Chaput "a fiercely orthodox bishop, a staunch defender of the faith and an outspoken public religious figure."

Chaput was put to the test on the clergy abuse issue starting in 2005 when several men told The Denver Post they were abused as children by three priests.

The archdiocese was told about allegations against one priest — the Rev. Harold Robert White — as early as the 1960s but allowed him to serve and moved him from parish to parish, The Post reported.

The archdiocese eventually hired a former state district judge to try to settle the lawsuits. Chaput attended each mediation session. By 2008, the archdiocese had settled 36 lawsuits and seven other claims involving the priests for a total of about $8.3 million, the archdiocese said.

"He met it head on," said Robert Zarlengo, the former chairman of an archdiocesan advisory body to Chaput. "He was very apologetic about it: 'We're sorry for what happened, but what can we do to make it right?' He elevated it to a dignified playing field."

Chaput sharply attacked proposed state legislation that would have loosened or done away with time limits for filing lawsuits involving sexual abuse from years ago.

The efforts failed. David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, said he suspects Chaput was chosen in part because similar reforms have been proposed in Pennsylvania.

Chaput "will seem more approachable than Rigali, who has always seemed to many as somewhat of a bureaucrat," Clohessy said. "People will likely become complacent and assume Chaput will do better. Sadly, many people judge bishops by their personal demeanor."

Politics from the pulpit

Chaput gained national notice in 2004 for saying Catholic politicians who advocate for legalized abortion — a conflict with church teaching — should refrain from Communion.

Amen to that, brother.

He continued to speak out on politics four years later, when he clashed with Catholic backers of Barack Obama and called Obama the "most committed" abortion-rights candidate from a major party in 35 years.

"Archbishop Chaput's appointment to Philadelphia is disappointing for the millions of Catholics who care about the church's teachings on social justice and the common good," said James Salt, executive director of Catholics United, a group Chaput has criticized.

Yet Chaput also has been outspoken in favor of immigration reform and against the death penalty — underscoring the fact that Catholic social teaching does not conform to any one political party.

There is no doubt Chaput will become a cardinal as archbishop of Philadelphia, said Shaw, the former bishops conference spokesman. But it probably won't happen until Rigali, turns 80 and is no longer eligible to vote in the conclave to elect a pope.

The thinking, Shaw said, is that dioceses should not have more than one vote. Rigali is 76.

Chaput's predecessor in Denver, J. Francis Stafford, was posted to Rome in charge of a Vatican council and became a cardinal in 1996.

In a 2005 interview with The Post, Chaput brushed off speculation about a promotion, saying he would like to serve in Denver until retirement.

"It's about the right size of diocese if you really want to be a pastor," he said. "Anything bigger than that, and it's more of a bureaucracy."

It is time to stop giving Herman Cain’s unapologetic bigotry a free pass. The man and his poison need to be seen clearly and taken seriously.

Imagine the reaction if a major-party presidential candidate — one who, like Cain, shows actual support in the polls — said he “wouldn’t be comfortable” appointing a Jew to a Cabinet position. Imagine the outrage if this same candidate loudly supported a community’s efforts to block Mormons from building a house of worship.

But Cain’s prejudice isn’t against Mormons or Jews, it’s against Muslims. Open religious prejudice is usually enough to disqualify a candidate for national office — but not, apparently, when the religion in question is Islam.

On Sunday, Cain took the position that any community in the nation has the right to prohibit Muslims from building a mosque. The sound you hear is the collective hum of the Founding Fathers whirring like turbines in their graves.

Freedom of religion is, of course, guaranteed by the Constitution. There’s no asterisk or footnote exempting Muslims from this protection. Cain says he knows this. Obviously, he doesn’t care.

Cain’s remarks came as “Fox News Sunday” host Chris Wallace was grilling him about his obsession with the attempt by some citizens of Murfreesboro, Tenn., to halt construction of a mosque. Wallace noted that the mosque has operated at a nearby site for more than 20 years, and asked, sensibly, what the big deal is.

Cain launched into an elaborate conspiratorial fantasy about how the proposed place of worship is “not just a mosque for religious purposes” and how there are “other things going on.”

This imagined nefarious activity, it turns out, is a campaign to subject the nation and the world to Islamic religious law. Anti-mosque activists in Murfreesboro are “objecting to the fact that Islam is both a religion and a set of laws, sharia law,” Cain said. “That’s the difference between any one of our other traditional religions where it’s just about religious purposes.”

Let’s return to the real world for a moment and see how bogus this argument is. Presumably, Cain would include Roman Catholicism among the “traditional religions” that deserve constitutional protection. It happens that our legal system recognizes divorce, but the Catholic Church does not. This, by Cain’s logic, must constitute an attempt to impose “Vatican law” on an unsuspecting nation.

Similarly, Jewish congregations that observe kosher dietary laws must be part of a sinister plot to deprive America of its God-given bacon.

Wallace was admirably persistent in pressing Cain to either own up to his prejudice or take it back. “But couldn’t any community then say we don’t want a mosque in our community?” Wallace asked.

“They could say that,” Cain replied.

“So you’re saying any community, if they want to ban a mosque. . .,” Wallace began.

“Yes, they have the right to do that,” Cain said.

For the record, they don’t. For the record, there is no attempt to impose sharia law; Cain is taking arms against a threat that exists only in his own imagination. It makes as much sense to worry that the Amish will force us all to commute by horse and buggy.

This demonization of Muslims is not without precedent. In the early years of the 20th century, throughout the South, white racists used a similar “threat” — the notion of black men as sexual predators who threatened white women — to justify an elaborate legal framework of segregation and repression that endured for decades.

As Wallace pointed out, Cain is an African American who is old enough to remember Jim Crow segregation. “As someone who, I’m sure, faced prejudice growing up in the ’50s and the ’60s, how do you respond to those who say you are doing the same thing?”

Cain’s response was predictable: “I tell them that’s absolutely not true, because it is absolutely, totally different. . . . We had some laws that were restricting people because of their color and because of their color only.”

Wallace asked, “But aren’t you willing to restrict people because of their religion?”

Said Cain: “I’m willing to take a harder look at people that might be terrorists.”

Generations of bigots made the same argument about black people. They’re irredeemably different. Many of them may be all right, but some are a threat. Therefore, it’s necessary to keep all of them under scrutiny and control.

Wednesday, July 20, 2011

As many as 1.7 million people suffer traumatic brain injury each year in the U.S., and tens of thousands die. Those who survive are often left facing years of physical, occupational and speech therapy, mountains of bills and limited insurance options.

Nine months ago, Marie Beattie was awakened at 3 a.m. by a phone call that changed her life.

Her 18-year-old daughter, Corey, suffered a traumatic brain injury, or TBI, when a truck broadsided the car she was riding in.

With her body twisted and broken, it took two hours for rescuers to untangle Corey from the wreckage. She had a broken neck, multiple fractures and, Beattie says, “The brain not only was hit within the impact, it spun within her frame of her skull.”

Doctors say Corey's best chance for maximum recovery is 12 months of intense inpatient rehabilitation. But she was released after only 6 1/2 months.

According to Beattie, her family's health insurance, Independence Blue Cross of Pennsylvania, sent her daughter home too early.

But medical opinions differ over the best treatment for TBI.

In a statement to Fox News, Karen Godlewski, a spokesperson for the insurance company, defended the decision to release Corey: "Corey's transition to home was consistent with the recommendations of the professionals at Bryn Mawr rehab hospital who noted that ongoing therapy could be provided in a less intensive setting."

But Corey's surgeon, Dr. Kennedy Yalamanchili, says 12 months is the best window of opportunity for brain trauma patients. "We try to provide the maximum benefit during the period of time that brain's ability to rehabilitate and regenerate exists."

Corey's battle is just one example of the millions of families left heartbroken and buried in bills.

“This is one month's worth of medical bills,” Beattie says, referring to a 6-inch stack of envelopes and papers sitting on a table in her living room.

She hopes Congress will intervene.

New Jersey Rep. Bill Pascrell, co-founder of the Congressional Brain Injury Task Force,[Emphasis mine. - F.G.] is asking the Department Health and Human Services to make treatment of TBI an essential benefit under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

Pascrell says, “[HHS] will define those guidelines. So that brain injured people can feel assured that they're going to get proper care.”

Staff members for Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who suffered a traumatic brain injury when she was shot in Tucson this year, have also appealed to HHS on behalf of traumatic brain injury victims.

In a statement to Fox News, HHS spokesman Chris Stenrud, wrote, “We greatly appreciate the thoughtful ideas provided by Congresswoman Giffords’ staff and will certainly take them into account as we work to develop rules describing an essential benefits package. HHS will be engaging in a public process later this year to get broad input for the process of establishing essential benefits.”

Until then, families like the Beatties continue to fight. A sometimes-overwhelming task according to Marie Beattie, “This is an exhausting process ... I can't tell you how many times in the middle of the night I want to throw my hands up and say forget it, fine, I'm done, you win, I'm done, you are bigger than me. Then I look at Corey and think, uh no, I can't look at my child without knowing that I have done everything possible.”

Children now make up less of America's population than ever before, even with a boost from immigrant families, according to census figures.

And when this generation grows up, it will become a shrinking work force that will have to support the nation's expanding elderly population -- even as the government strains to cut spending for health care, pensions and much else.

The latest 2010 census data show that children of immigrants make up one in four people younger than 18, and are now the fastest-growing segment of the nation's youth, an indication that both legal and illegal immigrants as well as minority births are lifting the nation's population.

Currently, the share of children in the U.S. is 24 percent, falling below the previous low of 26 percent of 1990. The share is projected to slip further, to 23 percent by 2050, even as the percentage of people 65 and older is expected to jump from 13 percent to 19 percent because of the aging of baby boomers and beyond.

In 1900, the share of children reached as high as 40 percent, compared to a much smaller 4 percent share for seniors 65 and older. The percentage of children in subsequent decades held above 30 percent until 1980, when it fell to 28 percent amid declining birth rates, mostly among white people.

"There are important implications for the future of the U.S. because the increasing costs of providing for an older population may reduce the public resources that go to children," said William P. O'Hare, a senior consultant with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, a children's advocacy group.

Pointing to signs that many children are already struggling, O'Hare said: "These raise urgent questions about whether today's children will have the resources they need to help care for America's growing elderly population."

The numbers are largely based on an analysis by the Population Reference Bureau, a nonprofit research group in Washington that studies global and U.S. trends. In some cases, the data were supplemented with additional census projections on U.S. growth from 2010-2050 as well as figures compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation's Kids Count project.

Nationwide, the number of children has grown by 1.9 million, or 2.6 percent, since 2000. That represents a drop-off from the previous decade, when even higher rates of immigration by Latinos -- who are more likely than some other ethnic groups to have large families -- helped increase the number of children by 8.7 million, or 13.7 percent.

Percentages aside, 23 states and the District of Columbia had declines in their numbers of children in the century's first decade, with Michigan, Rhode Island, Vermont and D.C. seeing some of the biggest drops.

On the other hand, states with some of the biggest increases -- Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, North Carolina and Texas -- also ranked in the bottom one-third of states in terms of child well-being as measured by the Kids Count project. The project calculated child well-being based on levels of poverty, single-parent families, unemployment, high-school dropouts and other factors.

The slowing population growth in the U.S. mirrors to a lesser extent the situation in other developed nations, including Russia, Japan and France which are seeing reduced growth or population losses due to declining birth rates and limited immigration. The combined population of more-developed countries other than the U.S. is projected to decline beginning in 2016, raising the prospect of prolonged budget crises as the number of working-age citizens diminish, pension costs rise and tax revenues fall.

Japan, France, Germany and Canada each have lower shares of children under age 15, ranging between 13 percent in Japan and 17 percent in Canada, while nations in Africa and the Middle East have some of the largest shares, including 50 percent in Niger and 46 percent in Afghanistan, according to figures from the United Nations Population Division.

In the U.S., the share of children younger than 15 is 20 percent.

Depending on future rates of immigration, the U.S. population is estimated to continue growing through at least 2050. In a hypothetical situation in which all immigration -- both legal and illegal -- immediately stopped, the U.S. could lose population beginning in 2048, according to the latest census projections.

Since 2000, the increase for children in the U.S. -- 1.9 million -- has been due to racial and ethnic minorities.

During the past decade, the number of non-Hispanic white children declined 10 percent to 39.7 million, while the number of minority children rose 22 percent to 34.5 million. Hispanics, as well as Asians, Native Hawaiians, Pacific Islanders and multiracial children represented all of the growth. The number of black and American Indian children declined.

In nearly one of five U.S. counties, minority children already outnumber white children.

"The 'minority youth bulge' is being driven primarily by children in immigrant families," said Mark Mather, associate vice president of the Population Reference Bureau who co-wrote a report released Tuesday on the subject. "They are transforming America's schools, and in a generation they will transform the racial-ethnic composition of the U.S. work force."

"Policymakers are paying a lot of attention to the elderly, but we have a large population of children who have their own needs," he said.

The numbers come as states around the nation are seeking to cut education spending and other programs -- rather than raise taxes -- to close gaping budget holes as schools districts run out of $100 billion in federal stimulus money that helped stave off job losses over the past two years.

In Texas, for instance, the Legislature changed state law so it could slash education spending by $4 billion over the next two years to help make up for a $27 billion budget shortfall. The move is the first cut in per-student spending in Texas since World War II, even as the state has gained nearly 1 million children over the past decade, many of them Hispanic.

The school cutbacks are expected to have a disproportionate effect on low-income communities which are less able to raise local school taxes. Advocates believe that could further widen the achievement gap between students of different races in states like Texas, where some of the fastest student growth is among those who are poor and whose primary language is not English.

The resulting cuts will be far-reaching and surprising to many parents and communities, from teacher layoffs to reductions in extracurricular programs and ballooning class sizes, said Jenny LaCoste-Caputo, a spokeswoman for the Texas Association of School Administrators.

"When people say, 'Cut government spending,' they don't think about the impact on the school down the street, until local voters begin to see the harm later," she said. "That's when we will really see the backlash. The sad thing is we'll have many kids suffer in the process."

Similar battles over education funding have played out in California, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida and Wisconsin.

Other census findings:

Based on current trends, Florida could surpass New York as the third-largest state in overall population before the next census in 2020, part of a long-term migration of U.S. residents to the South and West. The most populous states are California and Texas.

While more than half of U.S. residents now live in suburbs, the number of people living in cities also has rebounded somewhat in the past decade, increasing by 3 percentage points. Roughly one-third of the U.S. population lives in cities, the highest share since 1950.

About Me

First of all, the word is SEX, not GENDER. If you are ever tempted to use the word GENDER, don't. The word is SEX! SEX! SEX! SEX! For example: "My sex is male." is correct.
"My gender is male." means nothing. Look it up.
What kind of sick neo-Puritan nonsense is this? Idiot left-fascists, get your blood-soaked paws off the English language. Hence I am choosing "male" under protest.